What is a good credit score? (14+ Credit Score Charts & Ranges)

In order to be granted loans by financial institutions, you have to be creditworthy yourself. That means you have to prove that you can repay the debt within the stipulated timeframe without faltering or unnecessarily delaying. Your employer will often rely on your credit score to ascertain the likelihood of this.

This credit score is popularly known as FICO i.e. the Fair Isaac Company score. Considering that many people rely on credits these days to stay afloat, knowing how to compute it plus how to apply it in your real life is thus truly sensible. Read our descriptions here to know how to do all these.

To be able to keep accurate track of your credit scores, you no doubt have to find and make good use of the credit score chart. This is a role you can only manage if you have a template for that effect. Here are some examples in PDF to help you in achieving this end.

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What is a good credit score?

A score that exceeds 700 is generally considered to be good. Thus, you should always aim at hitting or exceeding it.

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Why do you need a good credit score?

Several benefits accrue from a good credit score. These are favorable loan and lending terms, faster repayments, many windows of opportunity, and of course, limited debt burdens.

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It is a measure of the riskiness of a potential borrower. The score denotes the likelihood that a borrower will repay the debt he enters promptly.

These scores range from 300-850 with the higher the score, the better the credit rating.

It helps to improve your credit score considerably. For you to do this, you have to adhere to some hot tips. Here below, we explain those tips for you:

• Remit your bills on time. Start by remitting your bills on time. Here is how it work: when lenders review your report, they take note of how faithful and timely you have been servicing your debt. A consistently good history is likely to earn you positive points going forward.
• Keep Balances low. Next, keep your balances very low. Never have the balances get too much or exceed some thresholds. That will also go a long way in reducing the overall debt burdens or obligations you might have to confront. Mainly, keep your credit cards debts extremely low.
• Limit your new loans and debts. Develop the practice of entering new debt obligations if and only if you have to. This will keep your debt burdens low and also contribute to better repayments. Moreover, they also improve your overall ability to repay the debts.
• Do not close unused credit cards. Just by opening the cards, you get to enjoy the benefit of longer repayment history. As we have repeatedly stated, this has a positive impact on boosting your credit scores considerably. Closing the unused credit is hence a sure way of forfeiting this wonderful benefit.
• Keep your obligations narrow. Other than entering new debt burdens sparingly, you should also keep your obligations narrow. That means you have to refrain from applying for and entering too many debts and credit lines. You want to be able to keep an accurate track of those obligations going forward.
• Dispute any Discrepancies. As with any other human endeavor, discrepancies will often arise when handling these credit issues. If and when you note any, you are advised to take the earliest opportunity to dispute and settle them. The failure to do so will often disparage your rating and overall standing.

It is important to know how to maintain a good credit score. This is necessary to prevent you from being declared bankrupt. The steps we delineate below will definitely help you to achieve this end:

Understand the Credit Score

Your first task is to understand your credit score. Learn how your score is constituted, what goes into it, and how each metric affects your score. That way, you will be able to adjust your score appropriately by regulating each metric accordingly.

Settle your Bills in Time

Paying your bills in time is by far the single most significant way of upping your scores or maintaining the same at the very high levels. Timely repayments are a sign that you honor your obligations and prioritize them over and above your other engagements.

Maintain your Credit Balances Low

In addition to settling your bills in time, you also have to maintain your credit balances extremely low. That way, you will be able to reduce the burdens that you would otherwise have to contend with when tacking your debt problems and burdens.

Avoid closing old Credit Cards

Old credit cards have the advantage of a longer repayment history which also goes to up your score as explained above. It hence goes that closing your old credit cards denies you the opportunity to derive this awesome benefit. You are hence encouraged not to close the old credit cards.

Manage your debt well

Having too many debts will usually impact your score negatively. You are hence highly advised to manage your debt burdens. One way of achieving this is to consolidate the burden into one. That way, you will appear a less risky borrower and subsequently be easily trusted.

Refrain from applying for new credit

An unnecessarily high number of credit inquiries have been noted to impact the credit score severely negatively. Make sure that you enter a debt burden if and only if you absolutely have to. That will also diminish your possibility of defaulting and the dangers that come along.

Monitor your Credit Report

Keep an accurate eye on your credit report. Take your time to read the score and how it varies with time. While at it, check out on fraudsters and identity thefts. It could be that someone might steal your card and use it to carry out fraudulent activities.

When building your credit scores, there are certain things you have to avoid if there be any hopes that you arrive at better scores. Below are some of those:

• Failing to establish the credit. The first thing you ought to avoid is to fail to put in place the credit. This means completely avoiding any form of participation in matters of borrowing and loans. How else can the various firms know about your creditworthiness save for you taking the credit in the first place?
• Remitting payments after the stipulated deadlines. Remitting the payments after the stipulated deadlines have lapsed is also another thing you ought to avoid. As explained above, your payment history accounts roughly for one-third of your total credit score. Timely payments hence have the impact of upping your scores considerably.
• Using too much credit. Using too much credit, typically by entering too many debt obligations, is also a sure way of ruining your credit scores. You want to limit the number of credit or debit obligations you sign up for as a way of mitigating this.
• Utilizing credit cards only. A diversified loan portfolio yields a better credit score compared to only one line. Moreover, normal installment loans tend to have a higher weight than credit cards. It hence goes that by utilizing the credit cards along, you will receive negligible scores.
• Nixing Old Credit Accounts. Nixing the old credit accounts will also impact your score negatively. Taking this unfortunate step will deny you the long history of timely repayments that have the impacts of improving your overall scores. To avoid this, insist on maintaining your old credit accounts and cards.

For a start, a credit score is typically a 3-digit number that ranges from 380-850. As a general rule, the higher the score, the more likely you are to repay a loan you borrow from a financial institution. By understanding how it works, you will know what to do to up your score. This core is dependent on five main factors. These are:

• Payment History – This is a track of your payments. It shows whether you have remitted your payments on time, how often, if any, you missed your payments, how many days have passed since you remitted your bills last, and the recent payments you may have missed.

  Overall, the higher the number of on-time payments, the higher the score is bound to be. That means each time you skip your payments, the score is impacted negatively.

• Loans – How much do you the various creditors and card companies? These loans constitute of your overall score. The loans, in this case, touch on everything you owe third parties, the kinds of accounts you have, and the proportion of the money you versus the amount of credit available.
• It hence goes that the high balances and the maxed-out credit cards have the tendency to lower the credit scores. If on the other hand have smaller balances, these may yet again raise the scores. Newer loans that have little repayment history may also drop the scores whole loans that are almost being completed can raise the score.
• Length of the Credit History – How long has your credit history been? This metric accounts for roughly 15% of your overall score. A long history of making timely repayments will definitely up your score. A lack of any credit history may surprisingly impact your score adversely.
• Types of Accounts – This refers to the accounts you have with the various financial institutions. Jointly, they constitute 10% of your overall score. Having mixed accounts has been noted to boost your overall score positively.
• Recent Credit Activity – In case you have opened many accounts of late or have applications that are pending, your sores are bound to reduce. The opposite is true. Your score improves if you have long-standing loans that you have been faithfully servicing over the years.